Mother-daughter duo

New show at Maison Depoivre

The initials MD at Base31 could equally stand for Maison Depoivre, mother-daughter or Meaghan and Dianne. Opening this past weekend and running until July 24, the Maison Depoivre Gallery is showing abstract paintings by the mother and daughter duo of Dianne and Meaghan Kehoe. Dianne is an award-winning artist who has been active in the County art scene for the past few years. She and her daughter Meaghan were commissioned to paint a mural at Base31 last year and came to the attention of Christophe Doussot and Vincent Depoivre at Maison Depoivre. The two artists were then invited to exhibit a joint show of their work at the gallery. Meaghan said that her interest in art came at a very early age. “My mother tells the story that I was drawing perfect circles before I was talking,” she said with a laugh. “That’s my language. That’s how I express myself. Even before I have words, I paint.” She went to an arts-centred high school and then enrolled at Sheridan College for Illustration. But she found the program did not challenge her. She then switched to study French at Laurier University, and along the way learned German and Italian, because she wanted to travel in Europe and immerse herself into the language and the culture. While in France she took a life drawing course, and that steered her back to painting. “It was there that I remembered how much I love art, and it solidified how important it was to me, and how really it just helped me breathe,” she said. She took on a number of part-time jobs just so that she could follow her passion for art, and then took commissions for painting murals, before transitioning to fine art and figurative work.

Meaghan Kehoe stands in front of one of her abstract paintings at Maison Depoivre.

When Dianne first came to the County, her medium of choice was oils and her paintings were generally landscape and figures. But soon, her focus began to shift. “As I landed and stayed here in the County, I also realized that I didn’t want to be married to just what was in front of me; it was too confining. I was at the point where I felt there was so much more ‘inside’ that I could playfully use in colour and composition and expression, that I did not have to look for something ‘outside’ that I could put on the canvas,” she said. The shift to abstract work came with immediate rewards, and she has since garnered a number of awards for her work. She also influenced Meaghan’s transition to abstract art. “There’s a freedom and playfulness,” said Meaghan. “You get to remember how you loved it as a child, without that pressure of perfection looming over you. There’s a tactile feeling of painting and layering, and it fulfills a need to explore my thoughts and feelings.”

The resulting works of Dianne and Meaghan are similar yet distinct. Doussot and Depoivre have curated and hung the works so that there is a flow between the pieces, as if a conversation were winding its way through the space. Meagan said that it was necessary to have fresh eyes look at her and her mother’s pieces so that the show would be free of any preconceived notions, a sentiment shared by her mother. “I was relieved and thrilled because I know we couldn’t have curated this show,” said Dianne. “As much as we are both abstract painters, there’s a very different colour palette and there’s very different expressions. I think Christophe and Vincent see things in there that we don’t. They see it as a group instead of individual pieces.” Maison Depoivre is located at Base31. For more information, please visit maison-depoivre.com.